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I’ve worked this past week on compiling a baby food post for anyone seeking out ideas for making baby food at home. I don’t make baby food at home because I’m a store-bought skeptic. In fact, the last time I was at Target and looked at all the baby food options, I was a little bit blown away. It’s completely dizzying how much variety there is in stores these days. So I’m totally for buying baby food. But at .99 cents a pouch, I’ve still got the price beat by making it at home. With a two dollar butternut squash, I can make almost a dozen jars! I also love cooking and tasting and seasoning food for my girls. I find myself sneaking a few bites of their food and I love knowing exactly what goes into the stuff they eat.

Making baby food gets me into a zen-like state in the kitchen as well. I’m not exactly sure why, but I love the process. I love choosing ingredients, maybe even ingredients I don’t use very often, and making something tasty for my babies. I also love the complete blank slate that a six month old baby is in that high chair. They have never tried a single food and I get to show them everything I’ve ever tasted! Hey baby, this is guacamole – you can thank me later.

In this post I have a couple of techniques for you to apply to literally any fruit or vegetable you can find in the freezer aisle. Then I have a couple recipes from my favorite baby food book, Tyler Florence’s, Start Fresh, and then I have a couple original recipes based on what sounded good to me and what was on sale at the grocery store. You’ll soon see that I don’t exactly follow the “rules” of baby-feeding. I find the rules restrictive, paranoid and somewhat unnecessary. You do not need to only introduce your baby to one food a week. If they have a reaction, it will most likely occur within 24 hours. It also makes no sense to me to start babies off on something that could be mistaken for wet cardboard in flavor and texture (rice cereal – have you tasted that stuff?!) It’s no wonder kids are expected to eat “kid food” when they are started off on bland carbs and not challenged very much in the variety category thereafter. I started both my babies off with fruits and vegetables and have alternated and given them something new nearly every day after we hit the solids stage. If you get in the habit of changing up what your baby eats from the very beginning, then variety will become the norm in your house and they’ll never know that most other kids only eat brown food. That’s another rant for another day.

Here’s some recipes for you new moms out there – send me any ideas you have, too! I love new ideas that help me get out of my cooking ruts!

Preheat your oven to 350F. Arrange the split apricots on a foil lined baking sheet and drizzle with maple syrup. Sprinkle with cinnamon (if you wish) and roast for 20 minutes. Transfer to a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Add the mint leaves and pulse till combined. Thin out with water if it’s too chunky. I like to freeze baby food in muffin tins or ice cube trays and then once frozen, I store the cubes in a freezer bag for easy access. I just label the bags with what’s inside and when I made it!

Combine all ingredients in a food processor or blender and blend until smooth. This doesn’t keep well the next day (it discolors – still tastes fine, but it turns a weird gray from the avocado) so best to keep the portions small. I cut this recipe in half and Ellie ate it over the course of two days.

I made this and loved the flavors! I think it needs longer than 25 minutes roasting – maybe because my oven is on the cool side. But I think roasting mango alongside carrots doesn’t quite work because carrots and apple take way longer than a mango to roast and then your mango loses a lot of its water. So, in my opinion, I would roast the carrots and apples together and then add in the mango at the end, or just when you blend. Make sure you line your pan with foil. The sugars in the mango will glue themselves to your pan if you don’t! – from Start Fresh

Frozen Fruit Baby Food

I love making baby food from frozen fruits and vegetables! There’s always an organic option if that’s important to you, and fruits and veggies are often flash frozen at the peak of freshness. The only fruit I’ve encountered that isn’t so great frozen is mango. Everything else seems really ripe and awesome. Here’s what I do:

In a large saucepan, add the frozen fruit and butter and a splash of water. Cook over medium heat until it starts to bubble and the fruit thaws. Stir in your vanilla or cinnamon and let it simmer for a bit longer, smashing up chunks of the fruit. Transfer to a blender and puree until smooth!

Frozen Vegetable Baby Food

8 oz frozen vegetables – in the pic above, I used frozen spinach
2 TBS butter
a pinch of salt
a splash (1/4 cup) of water)

In a large pan, add the vegetables and a splash of water and bring to a simmer. If you’re using spinach, you won’t need that water. Most other veggies could use a little moisture, and if you’re using peas, add enough to where they boil in the water because you’ll just strain the peas out when you puree and add water to thin out the consistency. Add the butter and salt and stir until melted and then blend until smooth.

Heat your oven to 375 and toss the beets and parsnips with oil and roast until softened and slightly browned, about 25 minutes. Transfer to a food processor and add a tablespoon of butter and the chicken or vegetable stock and process until smooth. You may need to add a bit more stock to get a smoother texture, but if you’re baby can handle chunky stuff, go for it. This has a FABULOUS flavor. There’s something magical about parsnips and butter, so I definitely don’t skip out on adding the butter. Fat is good for baby’s brain development. Don’t hold back! This is the puree you’ll want to eat, too. It’d be a great substitute for mashed potatoes at a family dinner!

There you are, my friends. I hope some of these recipes help you explore and try new things in your own kitchen! Most all of these recipes can be altered to fit any combination of ingredients, so be creative! Add fresh herbs and onion or experiment with various seasonings like curry. Have fun! That’s the whole point!

I’m happy to have resurrected this soup! Matt and I made it a long time ago when we were still doing the 800 sq ft apartment thing and then again when a friend of ours invited her dad over and we needed to fix low sodium, low fat recipes since he had recently had heart surgery. Matt’s father also has heart troubles, so it’s always refreshing to find healthy recipes to share that taste as decadent as a full-fat option. This soup is so perfect for the coming zucchini-overload we all will have soon (as it’s the only vegetable that seems to have no trouble in our awful climate) and basil, the herb that’s also hard to kill. It’s got all the depth of flavor of a soup that has been slowly cooked with butter and cream only – it has neither! It isn’t even made with stock – just water! So the sodium is only what you add for taste. I bet in one batch, I added a little over a teaspoon of salt. And it serves six! Can you tell I’m excited about this soup?!One other merit of soups from a mother of a toddler’s perspective, is that they are a perfect way to get more variety of vegetables and flavors into our newly opinionated children. Olive has eaten zucchini, pesto, fresh basil from the garden, etc, before, but suddenly, she’s on a suspicious, won’t-try-anything-green bender. Drives me batty because I KNOW she would like most things if she’d just try them. Sound familiar? What does NOT work is forcing, tricking, cajoling, pleading, prodding or manipulating your kids to eat. They can smell your tricks a mile away and they’ve come prepared with an iron will. This is pretty natural and resistance is futile. But soups. Olive has willingly eaten this soup twice in the past 4 days. It’s green! It’s got darker green chunks in it! Why will she try it? My guess is texture. No chunks – pureed and easy to sip from a cup so she has full control. When Olive doesn’t want to try something, I ask her to just smell it. If she smells it, 99% of the time she’ll try a bite. And I’ve learned to be happy with One Happy Bite, as much as it flies against my need to control the situation.

So. If you have a child who is resisting new textures/colors/flavors, try soups. I know it seems like a regression back to the baby food days, but if that’s what it takes to keep the flavors and colors changing on your child’s plate, I say it’s worth it. Children get used to variety if variety is the norm.

Without further babbling, here’s the recipe! Also, I paired the soup with a not-so-saintly fritter made from leftover Stove Top Stuffing. No kidding. They were FABULOUS as a little crispy soup-companion! I topped them with herbed goat cheese and they tasted downright fancy. Happy Meatless Monday!

Cook the onion and garlic in the olive oil over medium heat in a 3-4 quart stock pot until the onion starts to soften. Add chopped zucchini and about a teaspoon of kosher salt and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring. Cover with the water and let it come to a boil and cook for 15 minutes, until the zucchini is soft and easily pierced with a fork.

Add the basil and puree in two batches in a blender (watch out blending hot liquids and make sure it has a vent or you’ve got your hand firmly on that lid!) or, blend directly in the pot with an immersion blender, which is what I do. Season to taste with salt and pepper and serve with fritters, toast, or as a starter for your three-course fancy-schmancy dinner! 🙂

In a medium bowl, combine the stuffing, water and egg and if the mixture won’t come together after a bit of stirring, add a little more water until you can form the stuffing into small patties. I used a medium sized cookie scoop and it worked well. Heat about 4 tablespoons of olive oil (or any vegetable oil) over medium-high heat and fry the fritters about 3-5 minutes per side until golden brown. Drain on paper towels and keep the cooked fritters in a 250 degree oven until the rest are done and you’re ready to serve. This will keep them crispy and warm!

This is an important recipe to have memorized. If you know the basic formula, you can make a pesto with just about any green/oil/nut/hard cheese. It’s a great way to dress up a simple pasta salad, a plain filet of fish, or even boiled potatoes for a spin on potato salad. When it’s a pasta-only kinda day around here, pesto somehow makes me feel better about not trying harder to dish out variety. I think, “At least Olive is eating something green and different on top of her pasta.” While that may be the dinner equivalent to justifying nutella as a “healthy” snack, I’m sticking with calling pesto healthy. In moderation. The stuff is mostly olive oil. But I think if it’s used as a garnish, it’s just fine and a little goes a long way, anyway!

Put everything except the oil in a food processor and turn it on. While it’s whirring around, gradually drizzle in the olive oil through the open chute of the processor lid. Let it process for about 30 seconds and then open and taste for salt and pepper. I end up putting about a teaspoon of kosher salt and a few grinds of fresh cracked pepper to mine. Pesto will keep on the counter for about a week or in the fridge for 2-3 weeks. The top of the pesto will turn brown, but it can simply be scraped off before use. Pressing a sheet of plastic wrap on its surface helps with the oxidization, too.

I’m here to proclaim my love for a particular brand of sausage. No one is paying me, I’m just that fanatic about it. If you try it, you will feel the same way. Wright’s has been making amazing pork products for years. We first fell in love with their peppered, thick-cut bacon a few years back when our friend, John, made these amazing bacon wrapped jalapenos for a company party and said, “The secret is Wright’s!” Just a couple months ago we noticed their line of ground sausage. They have a regular, hot and spicy, sage and smoked. The smoked is astoundingly good. I can’t adequately describe it so I’ll just say – go buy it and put it in everything from eggs, to pizza to pasta to your sausage gravy and you will not only gain at least ten pounds at the end of your quest, but you will be happier. At least that’s how it happened to me.

I created this little pasta dish with ground smokey sausage, sauteed leeks and crushed red pepper. A pretty classic combination but with that smokey sausage, it takes it to a new level. The orecchiette pasta was perfect for holding little bits of sausage and leek – this is a fast dinner that is completely satisfying and easy to throw together after work. After you try this sausage, you will keep one on hand at all times.

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. (More salt than you think – for a gallon pot, I’d say at least 1/4 cup of salt. I know – the pasta is flavored by it, it doesn’t absorb it all. Your pasta will be good enough to eat plain.) Add the pasta and cook to the package directions – usually 12-15 minutes until al dente. While the pasta water is coming to a boil and while the pasta cooks, cook the sausage, leaving in moderate sized chunks, until cooked through. Drain the sausage on paper towels and drain off all but a tablespoon of the grease and saute the leeks until starting to color on the edges. Then, add a splash of water, cover, and let steam for 10 minutes until soft.
Add the cooked pasta to the leeks and fold in the sausage. Add the cheddar cheese and stir till melted. Then add the 1/2 cup of pasta water and stir until fully incorporated and everything is smooth (pasta water is an instant sauce-maker for pasta.) Garnish with crushed red pepper and serve! The baby ate this UP.

So. Valentine’s Day. Pink hearts and flowers and chocolate. I do enjoy the cheerfulness of it all – the happy colors and the excuse to make everything heart-shaped. I think next year it will be even more fun for celebrating with my little red-head as she’ll be close to three years old and will actually know what’s going on. However, this holiday seems to be only geared toward women, full of expectations and children, full of sugar rage. Not much love for the guys. Guys seem to have all the pressure to pick out a gift that’s not TOO cliche, but also not too far off the expected path, because then we’d feel sad we didn’t get flowers. I’m sorry, men. I really am.

I love that chocolate is associated with Valentine’s, because there’s not much Matt likes more than chocolate, except maybe coffee and smokey things like bacon and…whiskey. I skipped the bacon and went for the whiskey for his Valentine’s treat this year. Dark chocolate ganache infused with Laphroaig whiskey and coated in a super thin shell of even darker chocolate. For those who may not know, Laphroaig tastes like a campfire smells. It could seriously make someone suspect of smoking because it’s THAT smokey. For some strange reason, Matt loves it, and even though he might not initially approve of me putting his whiskey into anything except a glass, I think the results were good. He took one bite and said, “They’re SO SMOKEY!” and that was a good thing 🙂

I was proud of the shell, too. It’s quite hard to temper chocolate correctly so that it has a nice shine instead of dull streaks, and so that it’s perfectly, glassy thin, instead of thick and clumpy. I’ve erred more on the side of thick and clumpy in the past than I’d like to admit. I realized my success with these had a lot to do with the chocolate I used. If you want to make a perfectly tempered chocolate shell, you can NOT use chocolate chips. They’ve been coated in paraffin to make them not stick to each other in the bag and are already dull and streaky. (chips are fine for the centers, though!) Pick a chocolate bar that is already shiny and has a good snap – that lets you know that it has been tempered properly already, so it will set you up for a better chance of success. And if you don’t want to mess with the shell at all (and I wouldn’t blame you a bit) then simply roll the centers in cocoa powder or powdered sugar and call it a day!

Place your chocolate chips in a medium bowl. In a saucepan over medium heat, bring the heavy cream to a boil, then immediately take it off the heat and pour it over the chocolate. Let this sit for about a minute and then, in the center of the bowl with a small spatula, begin stirring in tight circles until the chocolate melts and combines with the cream. It takes longer than you think, but I promise – it will happen. Keep stirring and don’t stop believin’. Once the chocolate is completely melted, let it cool down a bit and then stir in the butter until completely incorporated. Going one tablespoon at a time (depending on taste) stir in the whiskey. Completely incorporate one tablespoon and then taste to see how you like it. The whiskey really changes the viscosity of the chocolate, but don’t worry. It just needs to be stirred a LOT. Once you’ve got the level of flavor you want in the mixture, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate until set – at least an hour. When the chocolate has firmed up, using a teaspoon sized scoop, scoop out your centers and form into balls and place on a plate or cookie sheet and cover until ready to use. I keep mine in the fridge until I’m ready to dip, but I let the centers set on the counter for about an hour before dipping so they wouldn’t bring down the temp of my tempered chocolate too fast.

For tempering the chocolate:
In a double boiler, or a glass bowl set over a medium saucepan (this is my preferred way. I feel the glass protects the chocolate from scorching better than a metal double boiler pan) slowly melt 2/3rds of your chocolate. Stir constantly and bring the temp up to 115-118F. Use an instant read thermometer to get the best reading. Once the chocolate reaches 115, take it off the heat and add in the remaining 1/3 chopped chocolate, small amounts at a time and stir to melt. Some pieces might not melt completely, but they will by the time you’re ready to dip. And if they don’t, like mine didn’t, oh well. Dip on!

As you are incorporating the remaining chopped chocolate, you’re wanting your chocolate to get down to 82F. Once it gets down to 82, place the bowl back on your saucepan and bring the temp back up to 88-90F. Once it reaches this range, you are ready to start dipping! Your chocolate should be very liquidy and fall easily off the spatula in ribbons. Dip the centers quickly and place on parchment to cool. Don’t worry about being perfect – just dip! Keep an eye on the temp of your chocolate. If it drops below 88, your chocolate will start to get thicker. No worries – just return the bowl to your saucepan and heat for about a minute. Then keep dipping till you’re done! I sprinkled cocoa nibs on top of the truffles before they dried and I love the extra bit of crunch it gives!

Tempering chocolate requires a LOT of patience, most of the time I do not have. But if you find yourself in a pretty zen-like state and you want to try it, I’d encourage you to. It’s a nice process that yields really pretty results! And if you have leftover tempered chocolate, do what I did and submerge gingersnaps in it 🙂

Every year we look forward to this. An entirely home-grown (or made) BLT! When we are fortunate enough to have a tomato crop, as we were this summer, the homemade BLT is the first thing in our minds to make. So when the tomatoes started looking like this:

…we knew it was time to assemble the ultimate sandwich. Matt cures pork belly and then smokes it in our electric smoker, I made the mayo, Matt made the bread and we grew the tomatoes, but sadly had no lettuce this year. So other than the lettuce, this was entirely from scratch! And what a good feeling. I think this is kind of like remembering how good the food was on vacation – most of the goodness came from the setting or the mood, or the fact that you didn’t have to cook. Similarly with this sandwich, the ingredients are certainly wonderful, but part of the joy is knowing that we worked for each component (minus the lettuce). We thoroughly enjoyed this sandwich and this moment and Olive deconstructed hers, discarded the impostor (lettuce) and ate the rest. She’s adoring these tomatoes, and I absolutely get giddy knowing that she likes tomatoes and that her first taste of tomatoes (besides tomato sauces) was out of our yard! She won’t remember, but I know we will.

For the recipes, I will post our mayo recipe and method, which is super easy and totally worth it for the huge flavor you get. I’ve posted Matt’s bread before, which is the bread we used for this (plus an addition of rosemary) and for the tomatoes, well, you’re probably too late to grow them yourself, but if you know someone who has an abundance, beg one off them and grab some good, thick-cut bacon and have yourself a BLT party!

Mayo (made with an immersion blender -might be my most used kitchen tool, next to my knife)

Place the egg yolks in the bottom of a tall, wide cup (immersion blenders come with their own). Place all the other ingredients on top of the egg yolks and stick your immersion blender all the way down to the bottom. Turn it on the lower setting and start graaaaaaaaadddddddduuuuualllllly pulling the immersion blender up toward the surface of the oil. As you pull up, the oil will slowly become incorporated into the egg yolk/spice mixture and in about 45 seconds, you will have perfect mayo! It will keep two weeks in the fridge and I recommend slathering both sides of your bread and searing it on a griddle before assembling your sandwich. Hey, if you only eat a proper BLT once a year, make it a good one.

Alisa: I wanted Matt to write about the bread that he’s made countless times in the past seven years. He started on a quest to learn to bake at the same time he wanted to become more likable at his office (to improve his performance review, which, the only thing that was negative was, “Matt’s kind of intimidating”) and so the two tasks naturally went hand in hand. After one year of bringing bread in to the office every Friday, not surprisingly, there wasn’t a negative comment on his next review 🙂 Bread is the great equalizer. This loaf, in particular, is beautiful in its simplicity, flavor, crusty exterior and soft, spongy interior. Frankly, it’s the perfect loaf. I think life has a lot of challenges, but if you could say that you could turn out a loaf of bread like this (given a day’s notice) any time it was needed, well, I’d consider that success.

Matt: I like making things from scratch. I enjoy learning how things work, and with cooking you usually end up with something better than what you can get at the store – and it’s cheaper, better for you, and you even get a night’s entertainment out of it. So I guess it was just a matter of time before I got into baking. I’ve been making bread pretty regularly for a few years now, and I’ve certainly gotten better, but I’m still an amateur. Bread is one of those things that you could devote your life to (think Jiro Dreams of Sushi) and still find things to improve on.

That’s part of why I love it, but if that sounds disheartening to you, the good news is that even the poorest homemade loaf is better than anything you can get at the store. With a little bit of practice you can make bread better than you can get anywhere (unless you happen to live in San Francisco, New York, or a country that still cares about good bread). It’s kinda like chocolate chip cookies – the best bread you can buy where I live is essentially the bread equivalent of Chips Ahoy. Maybe you live somewhere with a bakery that sells something other than cupcakes, but unless the guy behind the counter looks like this, I’m guessing the bread there is still a Soft Batch at best. I’m sure the worst batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies that came out of your mom’s oven blows either of those away. The bread that will soon come from your oven is the same – once you’ve tried it, you’ll be hooked.

Bread

21 oz bread flour (or AP flour if you prefer)

14 oz water (66%, for the bread nerds out there)

1 tsp instant/rapid rise yeast

2 tsp salt

Mix up the dry ingredients (you are using a scale, aren’t you?) and then add the water. Mix until the flour is all hydrated then cover it and set it aside for twenty minutes. (Or I could just say autolyse. See, you should become a baker, we have our own secret language.)

Stretch the dough out and fold it back up in thirds like you would a letter. Turn the dough 90 degrees and repeat, then put it seam side down in an oiled bowl. Wait ten minutes, then repeat. After three of these stretch-and-fold sessions your dough is probably developed. Put the dough back in the bowl and cover it and place it in the fridge overnight, or for up to 2-3 days (you might use less yeast if you know you’re going to wait several days to bake).

About two hours before you want to bake, take the dough out and let it warm up on the counter for a bit. Press it out into a circle (gently, we’re not making pie), then gather each side up to form a ball. Roll the ball in small circles on the counter to develop surface tension. This is a lot easier to understand when you see it, so you might want to watch a video.

Put the dough (now a boule, if you want to talk the talk) into a bowl lined with a floured towel. I use a basket called a banneton, which I flour directly, and it leaves little rings of flour on the loaf.

Leave the dough covered, on the counter to rise. This will probably take about an hour and a half, but you can tell if a loaf is still rising by poking it gently – if it springs back quickly, leave it to rise some more. If the indention stays, you’re ready to bake.

About a half hour before baking, preheat your oven to 450, with your baking stone, Dutch oven, or preferred baking device inside. You can bake on a sheet pan, and if that’s your plan you don’t need to preheat for very long. I recommend a Lodge cast iron combo cooker, which gives you the added heat while also trapping steam, and you can put dough into it without getting second degree burns, which is tough to do in a normal Dutch oven.

When the dough is ready, remove your preheated Dutch oven and flip the bowl over to put the dough into the pan. Make a couple of cuts in the loaf so it doesn’t rupture when it rises in the oven (this is called scoring), then put the lid on the Dutch oven and return it to the oven for thirty minutes.

Remove the lid from the Dutch oven and bake another 30 minutes.

Remove the loaf from the oven (the interior of the loaf should be around 200 degrees, if you want to make sure it’s done) and put it on a rack to cool. Lean in close and I bet you can hear the loaf “sing.” It’s tempting to cut into it right away, but I promise it’s better if you let it sit and finish cooking – think of it like resting a steak.

The first time I went down to Tulsa, Oklahoma to meet Matt in person, we ate this dish together with his family at a restaurant called Carrabba’s. (We met via instant messenger, after a dear friend of mine, who was talking to both of us at the same time said, “Here, you guys talk to each other, you’re telling me about the same band” (Jurassic 5) and after talking that day, we talked every day, increasing in hours logged (we had only land lines way back in 2003 and ran through multiple calling cards each week.) 6 months later we were engaged, and a year after that, we got married. We’ve been eating good meals together ever since. Aww)

Matt ordered the Chicken Bryan and we both marveled at the melty goat cheese and sun dried tomato mix that was tangy and sweet. A revelation! Since that day, I’ve tried to recreate it multiple times, but I never can quite replicate it. (Not enough butter?)

This week, I tried again and I’m slowly getting closer. It’s such a good dish, and as I look at their online menu, it says they drizzle a basil lemon butter sauce on top. Ah. That might help. Will try again next time! I happily used up the rest of my goat cheese and even made a mini portion on a bread and butter China plate for Olive, just so she’d feel fancy, too. (I think it worked, as she made some of the chicken into a hat near the end of the meal.)

As a side, I made the creamed spinach and basil recipe from a few weeks ago, and put a scoop inside squares of puff pastry, baked it, and although they didn’t stay together in the neat little pouches I folded, they were still amazingly good and a perfect side for this dish.

Pat the chicken dry with paper towels and season each side with kosher salt and pepper. Heat olive oil (go two tablespoons at a time) over medium heat until shimmering and cook the chicken strips in batches, not over crowding the pan, or they won’t get a good sear. Chicken strips don’t take long to cook, maybe 1-2 minutes per side. Let the strips sit on a plate, covered in foil to keep warm until ready to plate. In your empty skillet, add the diced shallot and saute until golden. Then, add in a splash of wine or chicken stock, scraping up the browned chicken bits and then add a tablespoon of butter to make a pan sauce. Set your sauce off the burner so it won’t continue to reduce.

Put your chopped sun dried tomatoes in a saucepan with a quarter cup of water and let it simmer to re-hydrate a bit. Assemble the chicken, two strips per plate, with a sprinkling of sun dried tomatoes, a basil leaf or two, and a slice of goat cheese. Place the plates under the broiler until the cheese melts. Drizzle your reserved sauce over the cheese and serve!

This could be considered the first post of many where I will talk about the joys of a well stocked kitchen/pantry. There are a few things shown in the pic above that should be in every well-stocked kitchen.

1. Rice. I keep several types of rice on hand: Basmati (so flavorful for Indian and Thai dishes) Brown, Sweet (sticky rice for Asian desserts), Long Grain and White short grain. It’s easy to store, it’s cheap (usually no more than $2 per pound) and in a pinch, you have an instant side dish.

2. Onions/Leeks/Shallots – Don’t keep these in the fridge. DO keep them in a dry, dark place in your kitchen, separate from other fruits and vegetables. I don’t always have leeks on hand, but I DO always have onions and shallots. When I’m at the grocery store, whether I have a recipe in mind or not, I assume that I will need onions. I usually buy medium sized, sweet yellow or Spanish onions. I would guess that 9 out of 10 recipes I make include onions in some form. Okay, maybe 10 out of 10.

3. Frozen Shrimp. Kind of the wild card that you might not think of, but in the frozen section, usually near the meat department in both grocery stores and big chain stores (walmart, target, etc). They come in a few options: raw with shell, raw, shelled and deveined or cooked. Get the raw, shelled, deveined. You don’t want to have to fuss with peeling shrimp and you definitely don’t want to mess with removing the poop chute. You may not think that you’ll use shrimp often enough to always buy a bag when you’re buying other frozen items, but you’d be surprised. Shrimp tacos, shrimp lettuce wraps, shrimp stir-fry, or coconut shrimp and rice…

Melt the butter with the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the leek, scallion strips, and garlic and cook, stirring, until the leek starts to wilt, about 2 minutes. Add the shrimp, curry powder, and salt and pepper and cook, stirring, until the shrimp turn pink, about 2 minutes. Add the wine or chicken broth and cook, stirring, until the liquid is reduced by half-about one minute. Add the coconut milk and simmer until the shrimp are opaque throughout, about 2 minutes. Remove from the heat, add the cilantro, and let stand, covered, for about 10 minutes to meld the flavors.

Serve on top of rice, garnished with extra scallion and cilantro, if desired.